On the night of the recent storm I called to see an acquaintance of mine in hospital. He had begun to deteriorate physically and mentally. The mind was somehow losing touch with reality. However, he managed to disguise his predicament rather well and unless you knew of his illness before visiting him, I think it would have taken some time for the penny to drop.
Two other friends of his accompanied me on the visit. First into the room was a man who had known the patient for over fifty years. You couldn't imagine two more physically contrasting bodies. The man in the bed was emaciated, gaunt, no more than seven stone weight I guess. The visiting friend was very obviously overweight. "Do you know who I am?" the visitor asked his friend. "I'm not too sure," said the patient, "but whoever you are you're looking very healthy!"
Next in line was a man who should have been well known to the patient. He walked towards the bed and shook hands. You could see that the unfortunate patient hadn't a clue who he was dealing with but still he was ready with his salutation: "You lost a bit of weight and it suits you." he remarked. The visitor retired back to the wall somewhat confused I guess. It was now my turn. The patient would have had no reason to remember me. Our paths crossed very, very rarely, but that was about it. So I decided to spare him whatever uncertainty or anxiety he might have been enduring and I gave him my name immediately. His reply was immediate and seemed to be spontaneous: "God Dick it's younger looking you are getting." He then proceeded to put us all at our ease by asking us had we any reports of what the weather was like in Ireland!
Despite his loss of contact with reality, he could still sustain that pleasant banter which ensures that life and relationships tick on and tick over. I suppose it came from a life-time of trading pleasantries. You're looking well! You're looking fit! You're looking younger every day! We all know that's rubbish! We just couldn't be looking younger every day. Yet it plays to a deep insecurity within us all, so we accept the remark as a compliment and do our best to believe it. None of us wants to grow old. Most of the time we adjust to it, we accommodate it philosophically and with as much humour as we can muster. Our concern with looking well is in reality a concern with remaining youthful. It's illogical, but it's true. We human beings, men and women, will go to any length to break the grip of age. Commercial interests will offer us a great variety of antidotes to ageing: They will colour our hair, and replace it if necessary! They will offer us anti-wrinkle creams that will keep our faces fresh and young. In truth what we seek is not so much youth as immortality. That is the deepest longing in every human heart, whether it is recognised or not.
As Christians we believe that all our deep longings are met in God. And this concern with immortality, with remaining young, is met, we believe through the resurrection. And this is the belief at issue in today's readings. While the general body of Old Testament Jews believed in an afterlife, they did not believe in a Resurrection, with the exception of the Pharisee party. But, as far as the majority were concerned, at death we are transformed into ghosts and we take our place in a shadowland called Sheol, a misty underworld not noted for its hilarity. It could best be described as slumber in shadowland.
However, in the late Old Testament times, the Pharisees began to develop a more active perception of the afterlife. Our first reading today expresses the clearest doctrine of the resurrection to be found in the Old Testament. "I rely on God's promise that we shall be raised up by him; whereas for you, there can be no resurrection, no new life" the dying hero shouts to his tormentors. The Macabees were a Jewish nationalist family, indeed a Pharisee family, who had led a series of revolts against their pagan Seleucid rulers. They lived about 100 years before Jesus. And a belief in the Resurrection originated in a context of persecution and martyrdom. However, according to the Pharisees, the resurrection was really a resumption. The afterlife was really an extension of this life into eternity. If a man died with his boots on, he rose to eternity in the same boots. Death was merely the suspension of earthly activity as a freeze is the suspension of movement on stage. Heaven was a reactivated earth, with the added bonus of exceptional fertility. One optimistic rabbi predicted that all women would give birth every day in heaven! Men would be in charge there too. How could it be paradise otherwise?
This belief struck the Sadducees (who had no belief in the resurrection) as absurd and ridiculous. So they cobble together an absurd scenario, and then they dare Jesus to pronounce on it. It was a hospital pass, if you like. But he was even-handed in his answer: While the Saducees were wrong, the Pharisees were only half right. Heaven was neither the shadow of one nor the substance of another. God is the God of Moses, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is God, not of the dead but of the living. In God all are alive.
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